Thoughts on ICT for teachers, students and parents

Menu

Main menu

Tag Archives: edtech

Here’s a short video that provides a look at one of my educational endeavours since my last post on this blog. I’ve been coordinating the ‘Teaching and Learning in the 21st Century’ professional development program involving approximately 240 teachers from across Victoria for the Digital Learning Branch, part of Victoria’s Department of Education and Training.

As usual, the best places to catch up with my thoughts and activity in education and technology are Google+ and Twitter, though you’ll find me discussing other topics too. Here are some of my G+ collections on edtech and education:

Here’s a short 30 second Animoto video illustrating just some of the things I took away from my participation in VicPLN 2013. The free version of Animoto has a 30 second limit, which is fortunate, as you’d otherwise be looking at a very long video! For any educators keen to build useful 21st Century skills and to expand their professional learning network, I highly recommend the VicPLN courses from the talented team at the School Libraries Association of Victoria (SLAV).

I love reading on my tablets. I’ve a Kindle, an iPad, a Nexus 7 and a few smartphones. (Yes, I’m a gadget tragic.) When I manage to pry it out of my wife’s hands, I prefer our Nexus 7, but in a classroom I’d go with an iPad because of the wider range of educational apps. That’s if I had to choose a tablet, but I’d prefer to not to have to choose one. A tablet would be a handy second device if my school could afford it.

I’ve been wavering on this lately because I see children doing wonderful things with iPads in classrooms. I’ve come to realise that middle-aged teachers like me love their iPads. In some cases it’s the first time they’ve felt comfortable with technology. That’s a big thing, and it means that children are getting to use technology more often because their teachers are no longer afraid of it. For infants especially, the intuitiveness of touch screens makes for short learning curves. (Interestingly touch screens are rapidly appearing on Windows 8 notebooks, and they recently arrived on Google’s amazing new Chromebook Pixel.)

Despite the great things being done with iPads in schools, I find myself on the same page as Gary Stager in his piece ‘In Praise of Laptops’. (Thanks to @ricahrdolsen for sharing it on Twitter.) I feel restricted by Apple’s closed philosophy. I don’t like having to go to Safari and Apple Maps by default on my iPhone and iPad instead of my preferred Chrome and Google Maps. It’s restrictions like these that send me to my Nexus phone and tablet first. Relative to iOS, I prefer Android’s more flexible operating system and superior Google integration, but I’d still much prefer a notebook in a classroom.

Steve Jobs famously compared computers to trucks and tablets to cars. Like many people, I’m lucky enough to have both. I like to relax with my car, but when I’ve got work to do, I use my truck. I think students need trucks. What about you?